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Louis Bleriot's Epic Cross Channel Flight Commemorated
 Aircraft sized stone memorial erected where he landed

On 25 July 1909 Frenchman Louis Bleriot became the first person to fly the English Channel. He was guided by smoke from a French destroyer, sighted land at St Margaret’s Bay, and subsequently made a crash landing in Northfall Meadow, behind Dover Castle.

In order to commemorate the great Channel flight of M. Bleriot; the Aero Club at once announced their intention of erecting a monument upon the spot of landing.


The aircraft was damaged on landing sustaining a broken undercarriage and propeller. The flight lasted just 20 minutes, but was enough to secure the £1,000 prize on offer from the Daily Mail.

Five days earlier, Englishman Herbert Latham ditched in the sea attempting this same feat.

The aircraft was damaged on landing sustaining a broken undercarriage and propeller. The flight lasted just 20 minutes, but was enough to secure the £1,000 prize on offer from the Daily Mail.

BLERIOT REACHES DOVER.
Wind-tossed and exhausted, after his flight from Calais, the airman planed down near Dover Castle ; descending so abruptly, owing to the gusts,  that he broke his running-gear and propeller. He is seen above in his overalls, a few minutes after landing, a crowd having already gathered on the scene.

On 25 July 1909 Frenchman Louis Bleriot became the first person to fly the English Channel. He was guided by smoke from a French destroyer, sighted land at St Margaret’s Bay, and subsequently made a crash landing in Northfall Meadow, behind Dover Castle.

"Flight" February 5th 1910 - BLERIOT MEMORIAL AT DOVER.

In order to commemorate the great Channel flight of M. Bleriot; the Aero Club at once announced their intention of erecting a monument upon the spot of landing. Mr. A. Duckham, a member of the Club, then generously offered to defray the cost of this, and a full-sized Bleriot aeroplane, made in stone, and which is let into the ground at Dover, on the spot where Bleriot landed, in the North Fall Meadow, just behind Dover Castle, is the form which this great monument has taken, as seen in our photograph.

Click Here For Some Technical Notes On The Bleriot Cross Channel Flyer